


Living Tales

by Tychii



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Aftertale (Undertale), Alternate Universe - Dreamtale (Undertale), Alternate Universe - Dusttale (Undertale), Alternate Universe - Errortale (Undertale), Alternate Universe - Horrortale (Undertale), Alternate Universe - Inktale (Undertale), Alternate Universe - Reapertale (Undertale), Alternate Universe - Underfresh (Undertale), Alternate Universe - Underswap (Undertale), Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Drug Withdrawal, Gen, Geno Sans (Undertale) - Freeform, Horrortale Sans (Undertale), Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Inktale Sans (Undertale), Killertale, M/M, Multi, Napstablook Remembers, One Shot Collection, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Reapertale Sans (Undertale), Sans is Papyrus's Mother, Self-Destruction, Short Stories, Slow Updates, Underswap Papyrus (Undertale), Underswap Sans (Undertale), X-tale, one shots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2020-10-13 23:31:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 12,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20590931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tychii/pseuds/Tychii
Summary: One-Shots!Short Stories!Some get a follow up story, some don't, only one thing is for sure!All stories are about Undertale! Whether AU's or not!Super slow updates!





	1. empty

_Empty..._

**Empty...**

Alone.

  
All alone.

**White**

  
**Blank**

_Nothing_

  
_There is nothing_

  
_No one_

_Empty..._

Everything

  
Nothing

There is nothing.

_I can't feel_

  
_Why can't I feel?_

**Where is everything?**

  
**Where is...**

**I don't remember.**

**Oh.**

  
**There is something.**

  
**Something?**

  
**What is something?**

Color.

  
That's... color... Right?

  
I wonder what it is...

.  
.  
.  
.

I feel... Something.

  
Yellow.  
Happiness.  
Why?

Color.

Blue.  
Sadness

Orange  
Proud  
Achievement

**Cyan**  
**Stability**  
**Will need a lot of those**

_Why... More?_

  
_I can feel._

  
_Color_

  
_Need color_

  
_More color_

_What if color leaves..?_

Color is not _allowe_d to leave.

Color comes from the places in the gaps in the white above.

**Then I will protect the Places.**  
**I will protect the Color.**

_**No one gets to take the Color from me.**_  
**_Without the Color..._**  
**_I'll be.._**

Empty

Ink refuses to be Empty anymore.


	2. INkerratefa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this sometime ago and have no idea where it came from or what plot there is. i wrote it while playing with fonts on illustrator for school and copy/pasted it here. i edited some of it too... the title is literally a bunch of letters thrown together, but somehow 'ink' appeared in them and i decided to just let it be. *shrugs*

**i dOn’t kNoW WhAt yOu eXpEcTeD BuDdY, bUt yOu sUrE ArE NoT GeTtInG WhErEvEr yOu wAnTeD. tHiS Is yOuR OnE AnD OnLy cHaNcE To dO SoMe gOoD So dOn’t wAsTe iT. iNk. I DoN’T WaNt tO SaY I ToLd yOu sO BuT I ToLd yOu sO! yOu rEaLlY ThOuGhT ThAt a sImPlE ‘i’m sOrRy’ WoUlD GeT YoU BaCk iNtO AnY OnE Of tHeIr gOoD GrAcEs?**

_it worked for you didn’t it?_

**yEaH, bUt i kNoW HoW YoU CaN Be. WiThIn a lItTlE TiMe yOu mIgHt nOt eVeN ReMeMbEr tHaT AnYtHiNg hApPeNeD If yOu dOn’t wRiTe iT DoWn oN YoUr sCaRf. AnD EvEn tHeN YoU WiLl oNlY KnOw wHaT HaPpEnEd, NoT AnYtHiNg yOu mIgHt hAvE ThOuGhT If yOu dOn’t wRiTe iT DoWn. HaVe yOu fOuNd a wAy tO GeT A SoUl yEt?**

_i might have found a lead. it gets pretty tiring to have Fate not allow me to take a break. and they force you to destroy more too. why did you have to kidnap Blueberry? if you hadn’t done that, you wouldn’t have been outed. now i have to fight you everytime we see each other whenever someone’s nearby, just so that nobody says anything about me not doing my job as the protecter._

**i hAd a bReAkDoWn aNd nEeDeD SoMeOnE ThErE. yOu kNoW I CaN’T OpEn a pOrTaL To tHe dOoDlEsPhErE, sO I CoUlDn’t gEt tO YoU. wE ShOuLd fInD A WaY To cOnTaCt eAcH OtHeR WiThOuT ToO MuCh dEsTrU- hEy! WhY ArE YoU LaUgHiNg?**

_‘without too much destruction’? hahah, oh Creator that’s so funny for you to say as the Destroyer. anyway, i agree with you. we should find a way to contact each other. maybe you could try to make a cellphone that works out of an AU? that’s your area. until then, i’ll give you an inkpot to dump on the ground if you wanna talk. i’ll renew it everytime i come over. you could give me one of your strings._

**uRgH, fInE! i gUeSs i cOuLd gIvE YoU OnE Of mY StRiNgS. yOu kNoW ThE DrIlL**

_his name is__ Phil_.

**rEaLlY, iNk? AnYwAy, YoU KnOw hOw tHeY WoRk. YoU TiE It sOmEwHeRe aNd tHeN TuG On iT. wRiTe iT DoWn, YoU IdIoT. yOu'lL FoRgEt iT OtHeRwIsE!**

_yeah, yeah, i know i already wrote it down sometimes ago._

**dOn't bE So bLaSe aBoUt iT! hErE.**

_ohh, it's rainbow coloured! thank you! byebye!_

**YeAh wHaTeVeR. i'm gOiNg tO WaTcH SoMe mOrE UnDeRnOvElA. cOnTaCt mE WhEn yOu hAvE A PlAn. IdIoT.**

_hahaha! sure!_


	3. Ink Heals Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dream gets injured during a fight and Ink figures out how to heal him.

Fighting with Nightmare and his Gang always ended up with someone injured. That someone was most of the time one of the Star Sanses, as they had named themselves in a fit of boredom. Ink got the most hurt, cheerfully taking hits meant for Blue or Dream, and justifying it by saying that _he_ healed much faster. Which was true but that didn't mean that it doesn't hurt! Right??

Despite his energetic behaviour, Blue was still a Sans, and thus had very low HP. 5 HP. Dream however, due to being a Dryad, and thus technically not a Sans, has a lot more HP even if you ignore that he technically embodies Hope. Ink doesn't have a SOUL and therefore decided that he should get hit the most since he doesn't feel all the pain one would normally feel.

Dream gets hit the least. Actually he almost never gets hit, since if he gets hit Nightmare gets injured too, same the other way around. It's why both sides tend to try not to fight the Dryad Twins, after all it wouldn't really benefit any side to hit them.

Healing was also troublesome. Ink regenerated within seconds if the injury is small and he could paint over his bigger ones. He could paint Blue back to heal too. Dream, however, he couldn't help that way. According to how many apples they ate, they had an easier time absorbing their element. Nightmare had eaten almost all the apples, and didn't even really need to be in a suffering AU to get a power boost. He could drop in an AU under his control and immediately start to heal.

Dream couldn't do that. He had eaten only one apple and while that meant that he did get a power boost, even standing in the most positive AU he could think of, he would heal very slow. It was why Ink had tried to find a different way to heal Dream faster. Which lead to their current predicament.

* * *

Dream let himself drop on the couch of Ink's house in the Doodle Sphere, and watched Ink rummage through his vials in the kitchen. He had started keeping them there since he would occasionally put a few drops into his food. Dream started to inspect his injuries. Luckily, they were all quite shallow, though 2 ribs had broken off from his left side, which caused him a fair amount of pain.

"Hey, Dreamboat? Which of my paints count as positive emotions?" Ink asked Dream, raising his voice slightly to be heard from the kitchen. Dream decided to see what Ink was doing before going to heal himself. Healing himself could wait, it wasn't like he was about to dust, and he preferred to be able to immediately help Ink if he did something that would blow up in his face... Literally.

"Yellow. Regular Green. Pink... thought not Neon please! No need for you to go Yandere. Hmm... Glowing too... though I have no idea how you manage to make that one..." Dream answered, trying to remember the meanings of all of Ink's paints. "Why? And what are you doing?"

"You'll see!"

"Fine..." Dream mumbled, starting to inspect the art on the walls. It changed every time he was there, and it was always interesting to see what had changed. He occasionally glanced over at Ink to see if everything was still going fine there.

Meanwhile, Ink had dragged a stool over to where he was standing and climbed on top of it to reach the bigger glasses. He rarely used them, so they were at the very back of the shelf. He could just paint them to have them, but the he would eventually fill up on stuff, and he wasn't about to deliberately destroy any of them... So, he just took the longer route to get some big glasses.

Grabbing one, he hopped off of the stool and started pour the before mentioned paints in the glass. Neon Yellow (Elation), Regular Green (Empathy), and Regular Pink (Love). He stared a bit at the mixture, and decided that since this was an experiment, he would try it first without Hot Pink (Lust). It might not work, not to mention that his instincts told him that adding that without permission would be like rape and that was super duper bad, so he decided against it. For now. He added some magic, causing the 'glowing' effect.

Ink carefully grabbed the glass and walked back to the living room. Dream raised a browbone at the colours he could see, why had Ink grabbed that? They had already figured out that Ink's paints were actual paints if anyone other than him drank them.

"Do you trust me?" Ink asked him.

Dream glance between Ink and the glass before sighing and nodding, "Yeah, I trust you."

Ink grinned at him before drinking everything in the glass. He took a deep breath, and then grabbed Dream's face.

"I-Inky? What are y-you doing?" Dream asked, eyelights narrowing in surprise.

Ink shushed him before going for it, clanking his mouth to Dream's. His tongue had already appeared and he pushed it against Dream's teeth, asking permission. Dream hesitantly opened his mouth, before gaining more confidence and taking control. He pulled Ink closer to him, manhandling him so he was laying on the couch with Dream leaning over him, continuing to make out.

Ink remembered what he had wanted to do and let all the emotions currently running through his body flow to Dream, letting them be absorbed by him. Dream immediately felt the boost and understanding what Ink meant to do, directed the magic gained to flow to his injuries, which caused them to heal fully.

Having been emptied of emotions, all the colours on Ink started disappearing. Dream saw that and gently pulled away from him. His eyelights sought out Ink's and when he saw the blank eyelights, he grabbed the first vial he found, which was Pastel Yellow (Contentedness) and put it to Ink's mouth. Feeling the magic in the paint, Ink immediately drank it, which returned his colours.

"Guess you'll have to figure out how much to take so I don't end up running empty again..." Ink laughed.

Dream rolled his eyelights and in a single move reversed their places, placing Ink on top of him leaning against his ribs.

"Hey... So... Does this mean we're Mates now...?" Ink asked, unable to hesitate since he only had contentedness in his right now.

Dream smiled happily at him. "Yeah, little garden, if you want then yes," he replied.

"Great," Ink mumbled into his shirt, starting to fall asleep, "cuz' otherwise I swear I would down the Neon Pink and Yandere on everyone's ass."

"Sure, flower, sure."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The meanings of the paints are from askbittyerror from Tumblr! I might put my own spin into them, but the base is from their post! I will probably at some point post a chapter or a different story with all of my headcanons that I use in my stories. Also, im lazy so im giving up on properly capitalizing letters in the 'noted' section.


	4. They Find Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! I would like to apologise for how long it always takes me to update, but honestly, life gets in the way a lot. Especially since I'm trying to raise my grades so that when I finish High School, I will be able to go to the University I want to.
> 
> Anyway! Enough about school. If anyone wants to continue this one, feel free to! Just please leave a comment or message me to let me know and where I'll be able to find it, because I really want to see what you'd write! At some point I will most likely create an Idea book where you can do what I just said xD.
> 
> Thank you everyone for enduring my monologue, well, if you didn't skip it that is. Heheh...  
Comment please to let me know I'm not just sending this out into the Void, I would still upload at times, but
> 
> *Knowing that people want you to update fills you with DETERMINATION.

SOULless.

Emotionless.

That's what he was.

Not that any of the others knew, afterall all of them absolutely hated Floweys. All of them declaring their hate of SOULless beings constantly when the topic is brought up. Ink didn't want to wager his existence on any of them being any kind of okay with him if they knew.

Ink could logically understand that that had more to do with Floweys habit of dusting Monsters and RESETing constantly, and that therefore they had started to hate SOULless beings, but that didn't make anything any better. Ink wasn't eager to find out what they would think of him when they found out. They wouldn't always be placated by saying that he had found a way for him to shield his SOUL from being pulled out and therefore reacting to Magic.

His Vials were also becoming more and more suspicious to the others. Luckily Dream already knew, afterall, Dream had been the one to find him wandering the Multiverse, and taught him all he knew about emotions. He hadn't told Blue, but he probably already knew from Error when he was captured by him. Blue met him _after_ the kidnapping, and from the way he had been cautious around him at the start, it was pretty obvious he knew. 

The Council would probably start to avoid him, or maybe even try to take over? It was very difficult to predict their behaviour. If Classic took lead, than there would be no problems but if anyone else did... he couldn't imagine any other peaceful ones speaking up. And Blue was still in his AU, while Dream had finally listened to him about taking a vacation.

Ink went for his Pastel Yellow, _Contend__,_ and quickly uncorked it. He downed a mouthful, but just as he swallowed the liquid, Stretch opened the door and saw him. Sanses from all kinds of AU's were peering inside and frowning at him.

"Ink? Why are you drinking your paints? Aren't they attacks?" Stretch frowned at him.

Ink panicked and blurted out the first thing that came to his mind. "I wanted to know how they tasted!"

_Really, Ink? That was the best you could come up with?_

Stretch looked disgusted and said: "It tastes like paint, Ink. Did the paint fumes get to you or something?"

"I, heh, I..." Ink shrugged, smiling sheepishly at them, "I got nothing. I guess maybe?"

Stretch rolled his eyelights and strolled into the room, immediately taking a seat on the opposite end of the table as far from where Ink was usually seated. Slowly the others trickled into the room, taking their places. Meetings took place once a month, to make sure that the AU's were running the way the should.

As the Meeting progressed, it was obvious to everyone that nothing unusual was happening. Ink smiled, "I'm glad everything is okay! Dream will be happy to hear that nothing bad happened! I guess that this is the end of the Meeting of this month!"

Everyone nodded and slowly started to gather their things. Most of those things were small pillows, or a notebook and pen in the case of the Sci and the Fell AU's, which were most of the time ordered to gather info for any possible threats.

Ink got up and went to walk to the door when he heard a bunch of gasps. Frowning, he turned around and was met with the sight of all the Monsters looking fearfully at him. He looked around and noticed that Stretch had his hands out of his pockets and was trying to use Blue Magic on him. Ink froze, before trying to save the situation.

"Guys, I thought I told you that magic wouldn't work here!" Ink tried to laugh it off, though it sounded a bit too panicked to be normal.

Stretch glared at him before suddenly lifting Red from his place with magic, proving that it should've worked. "Why doesn't your SOUL respond to magic, Ink?"

"---- don't ---- one." Ink mumbled.

"I can't hear you, speak up. Ink."

"I said, it's 'cuz I don't have one..." Ink spoke up. 

Everyone backed away a bit, some were starting to glare at him while some were getting scared. Classic stood up and tried to calm everyone down, pointing out that Ink could clearly still feel, and that he always tried to protect the AU's. It worked from some but Stretch slammed his hands to the table.

"I don't want my brother anywhere near this psycho! Everyone knows how the SOULless are! And I doubt he's actually feeling anything, he is probably faking it!"

Despite it being the truth, it hurt a lot to hear his fears come true, especially when several more Sanses spoke up and started agreeing with Stretch.

Ink's eyelights shrunk, "You know that I would never hurt Blue!"

He tried to guess what Stretch's emotions were, but he looked too angry. That's when he noticed it, a malicious glint had appeared in Stretch's eyelights, and Ink knew that Stretch would _stretch_ this out as much as possible. He had never liked him, never given him a chance, and now Stretch had found a way to get rid of him.

_Not that he didn't deserve it. He was SOULless _ _afterall_ _, the worst thing a Monster could imagine, something normally impossible without science. Something he had brought upon himself._

* * *

The next couple of weeks consisted of being subtly attacked, making it seem like he tripped or didn't see that one wall, but the week before the next Meeting they abandoned any notion of subtlety and outright attacked him. The day of the Meeting, Ink dreaded going, but cheered up when he remembered that Dream would be coming back. He had missed him, the Pink paint not being included in his normal paint mix when Dream wasn't there.

Ink giggled slightly and reached for the regular pink vial, back on his sash in its rightful place now that Dream was back, and drank a mouthful from it. A pink heart appeared in his left socket, before his eyelight reverted back to its weird changing ways, changing with each blink.

His hearing picked up on the sound of a Gaster Blaster charging from behind him, and he quickly turned around to see the threat. He sighed when he saw it was Stretch, knowing that if he defended himself, Stretch would find a way to spin it into Ink attacking him. Well, he would try even if he didn't defend himself, but it would be better not to bother. It's not like he can die anyway.

He saw the Blaster fire, but before it could hit him, Dream appeared between the Papyrus and Ink, an arrow already notched and ready to shoot Stretch if he tried to attack Ink once more.

"What the Stars happened while I was gone?" Dream glared, before deeming Stretch no longer a threat for now and turning around to fuss over Ink. "And you! I thought I taught you to dodge a Blaster if it fires at you! What the Stars where you doing, just standing there and ready to let the blast hit you!"

A pink heart appeared once more in Ink's left socket, flickering away before appearing back in its place. He didn't answer and just grinned at Dream before tackling him into a hug. Dream managed to stay standing, making it so Ink was holding on to Dream like a koala.

"Dreamboat! I missed you!"

"D-don't think I didn't realise that you avoided my questions! But- but I missed you too..." Dream hugged Ink back, before continuing, "Now. really, what did I miss? Stretch, why did you attack Ink?"

"He's SOULless!" Stretch replied, thinking that Dream wouldn't know and would be disgusted. He doubted that the Guardian of Positivity would be okay with a SOULless being. Others started to yell insults and... just generally bad things about Ink, sure that Dream would be on their side.

Dream looked surprised, before his expression darkened. "And why would that make it okay to attack him?"

"W-what?" Stretch looked baffled.

"What? Did you think that I didn't know? I can sense emotions, and Ink's feel artificial. Not to mention that I have been with him for centuries, I am older than all of you despite how I might look or behave sometimes." Dream started to glare at all of the Monsters present. "I can't believe that any of you would behave like this. Ink has never done any of you harm, even when he _can. _Not to mention that you probably have set back any progress I had made with Ink! Stars, I can't believe this."

"It doesn't matter," Stretch spoke up, "We refuse to have a SOULless being as the Leader of the Council. Or even have it be any part in the decision making. You should keep your _pet_ away from things it shouldn't know, the only reason we would need it is to fight."

Dream seemed to be shaking in anger, "First of all, Ink isn't the _Leader,_ he's the co-founder, _I'm_ the Leader. Second of all, it's HE. Not _It. He's_ a person, not a doll or an object or a _pet._ Third of all, what makes you think that you can kick him out? Who the _fuck_ gave you that authority? Who do you think that you are?"

Ink realised that Dream was moments away from shooting all of them in the face, _he __**swore**_, so he quickly tried to calm him down. "C'mon Dreamy! It doesn't matter! You can just tell me what's going on after the Meetings."

"Look! I had managed to instill self-perseverance into him but because of all of you _assholes_, any and all progress is gone!" Dream yelled at them, before smirking, "I wonder what Blue will think of all of you, especially _you,_ **Stretch.**"

"I'm sure that my bro will understand." Stretch retorted.

"Are You Sure About That?" A voice sounded behind him. "Because I Can Reassure You That You Are Very Wrong."

"B-bro?" Stretch panicked.

"No Stretch. I Cannot Believe In You After This. After All That You Have Tried... I Can't See You As My Little Brother Anymore. I Didn't Raise You Like This." Blue told him, moving around him and walking towards Dream and Ink.

"But- but he's SOULless." Stretch sounded lost.

"I Know."

"Blue, I don't know if you're willing to come with us, but I'm not staying here. I'm taking Ink and going to my brother." Dream told Blue, shifting Ink so that he was on his back.

"I'm Coming With You. I Haven't Seen The Gang For A Few Months." Blue reassured him.

Dream nodded and murmured to Ink, "Can you open a portal from there or should I set you down?"

Shaking his head, Ink grabbed Broomie and swiped at the wall closest to him. "Grab Blue and think of where to go, I don't know where their base is."

Dream grabbed Blue and walked through the portal, Ink closed it with a finger snap. All three looked at the massive castle in the desolate AU, before starting to walk towards it.

* * *

Blue took the lead, having been here multiple times, and knocked on the giant front door. They heard some voices arguing, before they heard someone ask who they were. Blue grinned and yelled, "It's me, Blue! And friends!"

The door opened and they saw Dust, Killer, Horror and Cross in front of them. Cross's eyelights shrunk upon seeing Ink and Dream, and he yelled, "Nightmare! Dream is here!"

Upon hearing that, Nightmare immediately appeared, glaring at them and growling out to Blue, **"Why did you bring **_**them**_** here?"**

"You could just hear it straight from us, brother." Dream sighed at him. Dust giggled at _'straight'_ mumbling _'no we're not'_ causing Killer to laugh slightly.

"**What do you want?"** Nightmare glared.

"We want to join you."

**"What?!"**

"I said, we want to join you." Dream repeated.

**"And why would I allow you two to join? Blue already could join whenever, but why should I trust you two?"**

Dream took a deep breath, before setting Ink down. Ink had a pretty good view of Dream's back, so he went to Blue, knowing what Dream meant to do.

"B**r**o**t**h**e**r **p**l**e**a**s**e **a**l**l**o**w** u**s **t**o **j**o**i**n **y**o**u." Dream bowed to Nightmare, four black tentacles with a golden glint appearing from his back and attempted to show how serious he was.

Nightmare's eyelight shrunk at seeing the tentacles, his own immediately moving away from Dream. Dream was unable to summon those unless he was feeling a lot of anger. **"Very well."**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Btw, Dust, KIller, Horror and Cross were watching a movie, that's why they were all together.


	5. Blocks The Way

It was quiet in the Ruins.

Nothing moved. A pile of dust was smeared in front of the entrance of the Ruins, like someone had rolled in it.

* * *

It was quiet in Snowdin.

Dust was entwined with the snow falling from above.

* * *

It was quiet in Waterfall.

Even the water seemed noiseless in the deafening silence.

* * *

It was quiet in Hotland.

However.

However, it wasn’t quiet in Alphys’ lab.

A ghost was trying to get their cousin to move, but being incorporeal made it rather challenging to shake their metallic shell. They knew that they were some of the few that were still alive. The others were Gerson, Burgerpants, their cousin, the King, and themself. Alphys had… given up after Undyne’s dusting… melting They hadn’t seen Sans anywhere, and were rather worried. They had seen Papyrus’ fate to the human- no, **demon,** and were scared that their skeleton acquaintance had gone after the human himself.

They had felt that something was wrong for a while now, they had seen the human loads of times, and each time the human seemed to act like they had never seen them. They played along but each time something different seemed to happen. Other Monsters seemed to play along too but when the ghost tried asking about it, the Monsters genuinely seemed no to understand what they were talking about, so the ghost stopped asking and tried to keep an eye out for anything abnormal.

Today it happened.

The human dusted every single Monster they came across, sometimes they even seemed to hunt for them. The ghost still didn’t know how certain Monsters escaped, though most of those that survived were shopkeepers or just selling things. The human luckily wasn’t able to find where most had managed to evacuate to. Their cousin had tried to win some time for more to escape, and honestly they were glad that Ghost Monsters couldn’t die. Well, those without a vessel at least. Those like their cousins, who had chosen bodies, could die but only if the vessel was beyond repair. Something the human luckily didn’t know, so despite Mad Dummy’s and Training Dummy’s death, Mettaton had survived. Barely. But he wouldn’t die.

At some point during the Fight’s, they noticed that the human was able to come back after they died, and it appeared like time wound back to before their death. At some point, they even appeared to be back in the Ruins, despite having been in Alphys’ Lab in Hotland. The ghost had been _ very _ confused at that, but after some time they realised that the **demon’s** Determination was helping them manipulate time like it was a game. They understood why the human was dusting everyone over and over, again and again. They thought this was a game. Did they even realise that this was real life? That this were actual living beings they were essentially torturing? The human died within seconds every time someone got them to ‘LOAD’ or ‘RESET’, as they started calling it after that revelation. The ghost knew what it had to do now. They had to make the human realise that this was not a game, that this was real life. They knew what this meant. They would need to do the unspeakable, but for the sake of everyone around them, they would do it.

The ghost floated to the King’s castle, and when they saw where the human was, they floated to the Judgement Hall. A place with no camera’s, since the King had forbid Alphys from placing any there, wanting to keep the Royal Judge’s identity secret.

Upon arriving at the Judgement Hall, they saw the shadow of a skeleton behind a pillar.

“Sans…? Is that you..?” they asked softly, hoping that it was the missing skelly.

“ghosty? what are you doing here? are you _ ghosting _ me?” the skeleton replied, stepping away from the pillar.

The ghost rolled their eyes a little at their fellow Undead type Monster. “That isn’t… the proper… use of… that word, Comic.”

“ouch, buddy. pulling out the middle name? that hurts, buddy, right in my SOUL.” Sans put his hand over his ribcage, right where his SOUL was floating. “buddy, you didn’t answer my question.”

“You know… what’s going… on with… the human… right?”

“yeah, buddy. they’re trying to dust everyone in the underground.”

“Not… that. I… meant the… time manipulation…”

“how do you know?” Sans’ eyelights disappeared.

“I remember… every time… they go back.” the ghost told him. “Being… incorporeal and… intangible… helps, I guess… I’m sorry… I don’t know…”

“it’s okay buddy. was that all you wanted to tell me?”

“No… I meant… that they seem… to genuinely… think that this… is a game.”

“yeah, i got that part.” Sans said, looking grim.

“No… not that… they don’t think… that we are… living beings. They… behave like… they could… wake up at… any point and… want to do everything… before that happens.” the ghost corrected him.

Sans frowned and seemed to turn that over in his head, going over everything the human ever said, did and didn’t say or do. Body language, facial muscles…

They saw the exact moment he realised it too.

“We need… to make them… realise that… this isn’t… a game.”

“yeah, but how do you propose we do that? they appear to have a _ bone _ to pick with me, Fighting me multiple times and this time the only reason they aren’t here yet, is because they want to try a different combination of healing items in their fight with me to see if they last longer.”

“You… know how…”

Sans’ eyelights widen, and he seemed shocked. “buddy… do you understand what you’re saying…? that will stain your SOUL across the timelines. every timeline after this, you’ll carry that stain. it will permanently lower your HoPe.”

“Sans…” they sighed, “I’m a Ghost class Monster… So long as I’m… without a vessel… I won’t be… able to die… my HoPe is keeping… me from Falling… Down, but… the human… won’t be able to… harm me… I still… have things… I need to do… I won’t die… so easily…”

“heh, dt, huh? the only Monster class able to have dt… okay buddy. but i refuse to allow you to take the fall. i will be right there with you. i can’t do the actual act, my HoPe can’t get any lower or i’ll dust, but up to that point? i will be helping you.” Sans told them, walking back to his spot.

The ghost nodded at him and a tiny smile appeared on their face. “Let’s do… it then.”

The doors of the Judgement Hall opened and the human appeared, walking to the shining star in the corner of the hall. The human walked toward the end of the hall, and didn’t appear surprised at seeing Sans appear in front of them. What did seem to surprise them was what Sans said. He said something different than usual then?

They took a deep breath, despite not needing to breathe, and appeared next to Sans. They looked **Determined** at the human. This was it.

  * **_NAPSTABLOOK blocks the way_**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas everyone!
> 
> I normally dislike holiday specials, well sometimes I enjoy them, but most of the time I don't.
> 
> BUT! 
> 
> I wanted to post something as a present to all of you, so it might not be Christmas related... but... good enough?


	6. Fresh - Cornered, Scared, Very Talkative

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fresh is Error's son but Error didn't remember.  
ALSO this will have some Fresh x Nightmare (I don't think this has a ship name... let's make one! Comment on ideas down below please! OR if it DOES have a shipname, please let me know what it is! Please and thank you!) and some Insomnia (Error x Dream) like a sort of off-hand mention since I have no idea how to write them all getting together...

** All he wanted, at that moment, more than anything else, was to feel safe. **

But that wasn’t currently possible.

After all, the only way would be for his mother-brother to remember him, but a millennium had passed and his mother-brother still didn’t seem to remember. Sometimes, he would do something that made Fresh hope, but that small hope was always extinguished when he still didn’t remember.

Fresh tried to drop by as much as possible, trying to kick start his mother-brother’s memory, but his mother-brother seemed to hate him, despise his being and feel only disgust for him. It… hurt. As much as he could feel that.

Uncle-brother didn’t snap out of his insanity induced rage when mother-brother disappeared, he came to only when Death had appeared for Fresh, and he fought him off, managing to open a portal to a random AU to protect him. Uncle-brother fought Death while he was in that AU, Underfresh, and the Sans of that AU found him. Self-preservation overtook the small shin and somehow his small underdeveloped SOUL wrapped itself around the older Monster and he found himself looking through the Sans’ eyesockets.

The fight between Death and his uncle-brother halted when they noticed what had happened, and his uncle-brother rushed over to him, checking him over to see if everything was working right. His original body has dusted and the only thing keeping him alive was the body he was occupying.

His Host, as he started to call them, dusted after sometime but this time, Death helped him find a new Host. Death had fallen in love with his uncle-brother and was trying to get in his good graces by helping. Geno, as he learned his uncle-brother was named, refused to name him, wanting his mother-brother to name him when he returned. Death suggested using the name of his first Host until his mother-brother came back, and he agreed, since they needed something to call him.

Geno had somehow managed to meet with his mother-brother, and that had caused him to remember Geno. He had tried to mention Fresh, but the moment any mention of him passed his uncle-brother's mouth, his mother-brother left.

He knew how bad it must look, he was practically stalking Error after all. But while sometimes he checked on him because he wanted to know if he remembered, most of the time he just needed to be near him. Error’s magic calmed him down every time he felt a breakdown approaching. His Hosts had to be kept somewhat alive for him to get nourishment, but they were eternally suffering, and while he wasn’t able to care about that, they were always **so **_LOUD_.

And that’s how he got into this situation. Nightmare and his gang had cornered him, and he could feel his anxiety levels rising, something that Nightmare probably felt beneath all the layers of suffering from his current Host, since he immediately started interrogating him.

“**Tell us why you have been stalking and harassing Error these past centuries.” **Nightmare demanded, but when Fresh didn’t answer, his grin widens and he nodded to Dust.

A bone attack pierced Fresh’s ribcage and pinned him to the wall behind him. Fresh’s eyelight disappeared from behind his glasses, his SOUL started to glow in his eyesocket, and his wound started to heal around the attack, the glow fading once it couldn't heal anymore.

Nightmare’s eyelight narrowed slightly and he leaned forward. “**What are you doing?”** he demanded, looking down at him.

“Nothing, broski, nothing. Say, maybe you could, like, call your minions off or something? Ya know how it is; people to see, food to eat. Food doesn't eat itself ya know?” Fresh tried to remember how to use slang, but Nightmare's increasingly more successful attempts to have his aura affect him started to wear him down, too much of his concentration going into not breaking down. Fresh wasn't normally affected by Nightmare's aura, but now that it was starting to build up, and Fresh realised that if he didn't manage to leave right now, his emotions would overwhelm him, not being used to intense emotions. Or, you know, more than 20%, and his emotions seemed to have arrived at 120%.

“**Now, why... would I do such a thing? Right. When you're about to. Break down and... TELL ME.”** Nightmare's voice started to deepen as he fused more of his power into it. Horror seemed to shake from it, and Fresh missed Nightmare shooting an apologetic look at Horror.

“I... I...” Fresh started to shake, some dust flaking off of his skull as the emotions overloaded his Hosts body. A purple liquid fell from his eyesockets like tears. The substance always leaked instead of tears and was actually the same liquid that was expelled during labour by Skeleton Bearer named _Bumin_, since he didn't possess a body wholly his own.

Nightmare seemed alarmed at that directing all his minions away from what he thought the parasite's vessel dusting, making him a danger to his own.

Fresh fully broke down, unable to hold back answers anymore and yelled: “Error is my mother!”

The gang froze and Nightmare's eyelight shrunk, an unspoken threat in his voice as he said: “**Error would have told us if he had reproduced.”**

“Error is my Mother-Brother.” Fresh gulped at the threat and continued, not a hint of 90's slang in his words, “When I first appeared from the Genocide branch, only 148 Genocide Routes had gone through the Underground since my SOUL shard had been 1/10th of the original SOUL and was barely functional. When I appeared in the Save Screen, my shard wasn't strong enough to survive and was about to crack further, killing me. My body was incapable of even a twitch. Mother-brother took me and allowed me to grow within him, and when the key broke, I seemed to have been reborn as a normal, magic-born, shin of Mother-brother. When mother-brother disappeared, I was still a shin and needed my Bearer's magic to survive. Uncle-brother was still lost in his rage and insanity, so he wasn't able to help, he only came back to his senses when Death came for me when I was about to starve. I became a parasite when self-preservation shoved me into a Sans's body, eating their SOUL in replacement for the magic I would have normally received.”

Fresh nervously stared at them, and Nightmare frowned at him, “**Then why do you still eat SOULs if it was only as a replacement for your Bearer's magic? You have been around a long time by now and you shouldn't need it anymore.”**

He winced and answered, “My body dusted when I hopped for the first time and... a skeleton can only start to eat normal food when they become a Lesser Skeleton...

“**Yes, and?” **Nightmare asked impatiently.

“I still need my Bearer's magic to grow, I just won't starve without it. Others SOULs are just keeping me from starving to death. Despite having been alive for a large amount of time, my SOUL is still that of a shin.”

Nightmare stared in horror at him and Dust took that as a signal to dissolve the bone attack in his ribcage and the wound healed immediately. Having a shin's SOUL made him a shin, albeit a mature one because of the years of having been one, but still a shin. A toddler.

Fresh tried to reassure them when he saw the horror in all of their faces, “Most likely I would skip the Lesser Skeleton stage if I did have my Bearer's magic, so you don't have to treat me like a shin...”

His reassurances didn't help at all since it was a horrible thing to be forced to skip that Stage, and most of the time those that skipped it had been at least at the start of it and had said that it was the most painful thing in the Multiverse.

“**We need to find Error.” **Nightmare decided before glancing at Fresh.

“Why do you believe me so easily...?” Fresh wondered.

“**Because I can tell when someone is lying, even with emotions as muted as you, I can still feel it.” **Nightmare told him before frowning, “**Why did Geno not tell Error about you?”**

“Uncle-brother tried but every time my name was mentioned, mother-brother would get angry and leave.”

“**Hmm... guess we'll have to force him to listen...”**

“N̷o̵ ̸n̵e̸e̵d̴ ̴t̶o̵.̸ ̶I̸'̵m̷ ̶h̸e̸r̵e̶ ̴a̵n̶d̴ ̷I̴ ̸h̵e̴a̴r̷d̷ ̶e̶v̵e̵r̶y̷t̷h̷i̸n̶g̷ ̷a̴l̶r̷e̴a̷d̶y̵.̴ ̴K̸i̷l̷l̸e̴r̷ ̴h̵a̵d̴ ̴a̵s̷k̵e̴d̴ ̴m̷e̷ ̸t̷o̵ ̵s̷t̷a̴y̸ ̵c̶l̷o̵s̷e̶ ̵b̴e̷c̸a̵u̴s̵e̵ ̷h̵e̶ ̸h̶a̷d̷ ̶a̴ ̴w̶e̴i̵r̸d̸ ̴f̶e̵e̷l̴i̶n̷g̵.̵” A voice said above them.

Error lowered himself down with his strings and stepped in front of the newly Healed Fresh, Cross had gone back to the others when he finished Healing Fresh.

Error put his glasses on and looked closely at Fresh, not recognising him. He grabbed the parasite's glasses, which had remained blank during the whole explanation, and stared at the tiny SOUL in his eyesocket.

For once Error's speech stopped glitching, as he whispered, “**V3?”**

“Hello. Mother-Brother...” Fresh answered hesitantly.

“S̶̗̣̓t̴̼̮̓̽ā̴͎̝̐r̵͖̈́ş̵͎̈̍d̶̦͛̊ä̴̜́́m̵̝͎͘͝n̶͇̱̈́̄į̶͓̂̏t̸͇̿̃!̴̙̆ ̴̻̞̔T̴̻̦̍͗h̵͍̜̃a̶̟͉͗ẗ̴̟̟́ ̶̱͌b̴̟̎̉ị̷̐͊t̷͔͐̍c̸̝̟͗h̵̹̟̀!̷̃ͅ ̶̢̰I̷̘̖ ̶̞̿h̵̠͑̔a̷̭͌͂v̷̖̓e̴̘͊̎ ̸̪̑a̶̻͠ ̸̲̚ͅs̷͍̄̚ő̴̪n̸̑ͅ-̶̧͚̕ḇ̴͖͋͘r̷̡ö̵̐ͅṱ̷̭͗͆h̵̟̕e̴̠͗̚r̴͓͎̋?̵̨̭̅ ̸̰͋Ḥ̷̰̈́ō̶̡͎w̸͚̳͐ ̶̰̈͊d̴͇̏ą̶̞̏̓r̸̦̤̈́e̴͕͂̇ ̸̠̈́ͅṣ̸̀̀ͅḧ̶͓͝e̶̜̍͐ ̷͔̥̾t̷̗̻̾͝a̶͕̩̓ķ̷̯͛̈́ȇ̷̙̝ ̸̡̊͝m̷̨̂y̴̪̝̽ ̴̰̉̌m̷͖͉̄̊ḙ̵̞̇͘m̶̰̽̈́ŏ̴͜r̵̫͘i̶͎̒ȩ̴͂s̸̳͋͆ ̶̡͉̿̄ḁ̶̑̂b̴̺̃́o̸̩͉͛̐u̷̟͝t̷͖̹̒ ̷̼͖́͗ẏ̶͉̹͌o̷̝͠ͅȕ̸̦͎ ̵̝͔̔̓ą̷̂̿w̸̝̋̈́ä̵̱́̕ẙ̵̜̲!̷̪̎” Error practically roared in anger as his memories returned, but immediately stopped when he saw how distressed Fresh started to look. The ERROR grabbed Fresh, his haphephobia not acting up now made sense, since it wouldn't be triggered by offspring, and had never been triggered by Fresh, no matter how much he had annoyed him before he knew he was V3, and hugged him tightly. Fresh's skull was pressed to the ERROR's chest where his SOUL was, and suddenly Fresh felt himself relaxing as he realized that his Bearer was feeding him. The gang looked away politely, as this was the first time in centuries that the ERROR could feed his son-brother, and thus counted as a private moment.

**________________**   
  
  


A few years had passed since the ERROR had regained the last bit of his memories, and just like Fresh had predicted, he had spent a total of 1 week as a Lesser Skeleton before skipping to Skeleton. Which was lucky for him, since Nightmare isn't a pedophile and would refuse to even hug him so long as he remained with a shin SOUL.

By now Error had even settled down with Dream, which had been an eventful and weird day, but ended very happily. The family dynamic was even weirder now, since Dream had been upgraded to Father by Fresh when he seemed to actually love Mother-Brother and his behavior had remained loving even when he was introduced to Fresh as Error's son-brother, who he had until then only know as an insane parasite. And since Fresh had ended up mated to Nightmare, Dream was Nightmare's brother AND father-in-law and Nightmare his brother AND son-in-law, which had caused several jokes to be told by various people in the gang and even Ink had joined in after being super scolded by his Mama-Dream.

Nightmare could feed on Fresh's Host's suffering, which helped Fresh since HE didn't feel it anymore and Fresh's SOUL finally had grown enough that his emotions had gone from 20% to 100% as they should be.

Everything was as it should be.

Fresh had never felt so safe in his long life.****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hello! I haven't updated in months, and don't really have an excuse, just that my brain didn't let me write. Dang, I really have a problem with Writer's Block... It just keeps hitting me whenever it feels like it...
> 
> Anyway! I finally have an actual computer to write on, so I no longer need to on my tablet. My school has been currently closed since Wednesday (we still went Tuesday), and that means 6 days. They didn't really say when they'll open since they said 15 days but it'll probably be longer. I'm not in my last year, so I don't know what they'll do for us lowly 2nd year High Schoolers...
> 
> I hope to update a little more, since I did get the feeling to write some of my ideas in my enormous list of ideas (I might make a book with the ideas, since I wanna see what others write with them, though at some point, I would still write the idea of how I imagined it).
> 
> I love comments! Please comment! It makes me super duper extra happy...


	7. Papyrus' Mother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Frisk's birthday, and they have an important question.

Everyone had gathered in Toriel's house for Frisk's birthday party, Toriel had even made an exception for Asgore to attend since normally she wouldn't allow him into her house.

They had cut the cake and were just making small talk, Frisk wandering around and commenting on conversations that their guests were having.

They looked around and stared a little at the skeleton brothers. They were standing with Grillby, Asgore, Undyne and Alphys. Toriel had gone into the kitchen to bring out more pie. Their eyebrows furrowed as they took in the rather large height difference between them. It was something that they had noticed ever since they met the two skeletons but never commented on in fear of being rude.

But it was their birthday today, so they were sure it would be okay to ask. They moved over to the skeletons and stared at Sans until he turned his attention towards them.

After a few moments Sans noticed them trying to get his attention and looked slightly down at them.** “what's up buddy?”**

They asked him why he was so much shorter than Papyrus.

**“huh? oh, it's because his father was tall. he was a little taller than papyrus is now.”** Sans answered them easily.

They frowned at him and asked him why he said 'his' father and not 'our' father. Sweat starts to appear on Sans skull as he's speechless for a moment.

By this point, everyone had turned towards them, wanting to hear his answer. Papyrus turns towards the shorter skeleton and asks, _“INDEED, BROTHER! ANYTIME I ASKED ABOUT FATHER, YOU NEVER SAID 'OUR'! NEITHER HAVE YOU EVER MENTIONED OUR MOTHER.”_

Asgore looks confused at the taller skeleton. He starts to say, “Papyrus, are you not aware that Sans is-” but Sans quickly interrupts.

**“asgore, papyrus is aware that he's my b.r.o.t.h.e.r.”**

Sans falters for a moment at everyone's stare, and Grillby places a hand on his shoulder, shaking his head slightly.

Asgore sternly looks at Sans and continues with his sentence, “mother. Sans is your Mother, Papyrus.”

Undyne and Alphys let out gasps, not having seen that coming.

_“What?”_ Papyrus gapes at Asgore, before turning around to face Sans once more. His tone is noticeably lower, no longer as loud as before. _“Sans, Is This True?”_

Sans' eyelights tried to find somewhere else to look, instead of Papyrus, but it was hard since he had lowered himself slightly to be on the same level as the older skeleton.

Not finding anyway to avoid talking about it, Sans let out a sigh and nodded,** “yes papyrus, it's true.”**

_“So, You're My Mother?”_ Papyrus repeated, in slight disbelief, wanting to make sure.

**“i'm your mom,”** Sans clarified, leaving no room for misunderstanding,** “i gave birth ta ya and everything. not as painful for skeletons as it is for other monsters and humans.”**

_“Why Did You Never Tell Me?”_ Papyrus asked, sounding slightly lost.

Sans sighed and answered, **“i... your father's name is w.d. gaster, he had been the royal scientist before alphys. i used to work as his assistant. one day, he tried an experiment and it went wrong, that caused 'im to fall into the core. you had been 1 year old and i tried to keep ya safe while trying to find your father.”**

Sans looked away for a moment before looking back to Papyrus and continuing, **“when ya were 3 year old, someone mentioned that i didn't look old enough to be a mother and that i must be your brother, and you started to call me brother. i... don't know why i decided not to correct you, we moved to snowdin within the week, and only asgore, grillby and i knew that you are my son and not my brother. grillby knows because we had already been friends and asgore knows as wingding's boss and friend.”**

_“I Must Admit, Sa-- Mom, That While I Am Slightly Peeved At Being Japed Like This I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL NOT ALLOW ANYTHING TO BRING SOMEONE AS GREAT AS ME DOWN! Though Now, As Punishment, You Will Finally Pick Up Your Sock!”_ Papyrus declared, his tone returning to its usual strength.

**“are you sure, paps? it would _sock_ for you to change your mind about this.”** Sans grinned

_“MOM! NO PUNS!”_ Papyrus groaned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been so long! I am so bad at thinking up puns that I'm pretty sure there's only one, and that one took a long time, and it wasn't even a good one =(


	8. Ambush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Star Council decides it would be a wonderful idea to ambush the Destroyer.  
It goes almost according to plan too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a long time, hasn't it? Well, I did say that it takes me a long time to gather enough motivation to write a chapter.  
I've also been trying to make an animation meme, and it goes slow (and probably weird bc this is my first attempt at one of those). A heatwave hit my country and it's hard to draw when your hands sweat so much that anything slips or sticks to your hands. It's been utterly disgusting.

It was easy for the Council to plan an Ambush.

A little _too_ easy, but they weren't gonna be complaining! Less work was fantastic for the many Sans type skeleton's, especially since even the work that WAS put in, wasn't by them but by the skeletons in charge. Dream, Ink and Stretch. Blue had been pushed aside and it had been discussed to not tell the swap Sans about the Ambush.

The plan itself was very easy too. Ink would create an empty AU, nothing in it, and they would wait within it for the Destroyer to appear since it seemed that the glitching skeleton went after newer AU's first.

Ink, of course, was very opposed to this plain.

He absolutely refused to create an empty AU. Thus, a compromise was reached among the trio and he would create a basic AU, the bare minimum, and without any Monsters in it.

They didn't seem to realize that Humans weren't covered within the compromise, so the AU would certainly have many humans, and even animals, roaming around. But they only cared about the Monsters.

Anyway, you Readers aren't here to listen to me ramble about Ink's deviousness, but about the plan of the Council

The plan went off without any problems at first, like most plans, the middle or the end was most of the times the problem. Surprisingly enough, however, the plan didn't even fail during the middle.

They had gotten the Destroyer right where they wanted, and even managed to rush him fast enough and with enough numbers that he was overwhelmed and was quickly pushed down to his knee.

What they didn't know was that the only reason their plan had worked was because the Destroyer had a hard time seeing which of those that attacked him were from the Original AU's and which were from the numerous copies that existed, and not wanted to kill any of the OG's, he had been forced to attempt to put them all out of commission, which was easier said than done with how many Sans' had appeared.

Error had been forced down to one knee by the attacks, he was trying to find a way to get out of this situation, however the AU appeared to have locked itself behind him, not allowing anyone to portal out and escape, bar those that had put the barrier there to begin with. Error, of course, would've been able to crack it, however it would've taken some time and that was time he didn't have.

He resigned himself to the pain that would surely follow, his inability to die allowing him to feel every bit of it, and his glitches making it more painful than it should. The Council had managed to kill him plenty of times, though he always respawned back in the Anti-Void.

Right before anyone could move towards him to start attempting the final bit of their plan to kill him, a shockwave went through the AU.

Many Council members promptly lost their balance and fell to the ground, those that didn't fall flat on their face managed to land somewhat on their knees or hands, Dream fell down to one knee while Ink managed to remain standing by leaning onto Broomy. He immediately tried to locate where the shockwave came from, since he had been staring at Error and saw that he hadn't anything to do with it.

He wasn't able to see anything and after looking in all directions, Ink turned to Dream, his right eyelight having been turned into an upside-down question mark.

Dream stood up with a sigh and rolled his shoulders before trying to feel for what might have caused it. He frowned as he felt an angry force slamming its way against the barrier Sci had put up. Just as he turns to Ink to tell him his findings, the angry force seemed to... faze through the barrier and heading directly towards them.

Dream's eyelights shrunk and he yelled at Ink: "Duck!"

Ink, of course, in a moment of pure stupidity, answered: "Where?!" excitedly. He was promptly knocked over as a white blur ran him over in its rush towards Error.

Dream took a moment to facepalm mentally, before he ran closer to Ink and summoned his bow, aiming towards the skeleton leaning towards Error. "Who are you?" Dream demanded.

The skeleton was dressed in a white lab coat, black basketball shorts with two white stripes on each side and white slippers. A large slash wound covered his front, dripping blood onto his white slippers and a large glitch was in front of his left eye, multiple smaller ones hovering around him.

**_"Glitch, wHatt ARe yOu dOiNg hErRe?"_ **Error growled out to Geno once he opened his eyes.

_ "You're supposed to be home right now." _ Geno stated calmly, a large difference from his emotions.

_ **"iF yoU hAd-d-dN't noTIceD yeT, i aMmm a liTle b-bUsY riGhT nnnOw."** _ Error drily told him.

_"Yeah, I see,"_ Geno replied, anger slowly slipping into his voice, as he continued, " _I took care of the barrier surrounding this place, Fresh and Reaper should arrive in a few seconds. I kinda... left them behind in my anger."_

** _"NooOOoo, reaALly? I hadN'T NotICed." _ **Error replied sarcastically, rolling his eyelights at him as he slowly and painfully tried to stand up.

_ "Stay down. They're going to bring you to Dust to fix you up." _Geno told him.

"E-excuse me?" Dream stuttered before his confidence returned to him, "Are you aware that the skeleton behind you is the Destroyer?"

They both turned towards him, saying at the same time, _ **"N** o, re **ally?"** _

Geno's eye glowed as he took a step towards him, _"I am perfectly aware of who MY BROTHER is, are YOU aware of who HE is?"_

Dream's eyelights shrunk as he softly mumbled to himself, "Your brother?"

Ink's sockets narrowed at Geno's words and he took a step in front of Dream as he replied, "The Destroyer. Dream just told you."

_"Oh? But are you aware of what that means? Or have you been ignoring it? I'm sure that my brother had tried multiple times to inform you, before he gave up because of your hardheadedness." _

"W-what?" Ink said shocked before promptly telling him, "He Mercilessly kills and Destroys AU's for his own pleasure! Why are you defending him?!"

_"Are you sure about that?" _Geno stared at him in surprise, trying to see whether he is lying.

"Yes! I'm sure!" Ink insisted.

"_You're wrong."_

"What?" He froze.

_"He doesn't do it for pleasure. How can you not know this?"_ Geno turned to Error and asked him, " _Didn't you say that you've told him multiple times?"_

**_"i Did. He alWaYs ForGeTS tHE mOmeNTs afTER I toLD Him."_** The ERROR tells them, before turning back to his injuries and trying to watch them as they glitched themself back to health again.

Geno frowned at this and turned back to the two Star Sans's in front of him. They look confused, and Ink is frantically looking through his scarf with the help of Dream, trying to find any mention of whatever they were talking about.

"Aha!" Dream exclaimed, as he held up a piece of the scarf that was near Ink's neck. "What a weird spot, you never write them up so high." Dream frowned.

"What does it say?" Ink asked, trying to take a look himself but only ending up turning in circles.

"Stay still!" Dream scolded, causing Ink to promptly stop, letting Dream read it out loud. "It says: 'Ask Error about Balance', it doesn't seem to be in your handwriting though. What Balance?"

_ " _ ** Seriously, guys?" ** Reaper said shocked as he landed with Fresh next to Geno. Fresh immediately went silently over to the ERROR to look over his injuries. Raper continued, " ** You know, the Balances of the Multiverse? Life and Death, Positivity and Negativity, CREATION AND DESTRUCTION?! How can you not know!?" **

Dream and Ink flinched as Reapers voice grew louder and at some point even began to echo. "Wh-what are you talking about?" Ink asked confused, Dream's eyelights had gone out in realisation.

"There's a Balance for Ink and Error?" Dream asked, horror seeping into his voice.

Reaper nodded and Dream looked like his whole world shattered. "Tell me you didn't know. Ink, please tell me you didn't know. Tell me you didn't know that you were telling us to beat down and attempt to kill an innocent Monster only doing their job."

Ink looked up confused at Dream, "Someone tell me what all of that means?" Ink asked, his question coming out more like an order than a question.

Dream stared at him before nodding and turning to Error, "Please tell us what the Balance between you two is, I'll make sure he doesn't forget."

Error looked warily between them, hope slowly growing in his SOUL. "_ **tHe MuLltTIveRSe HaS oNlY a CERtain AmoUNt of RoOm. The sIzZE grOwS sloWLy, buT iNk crEAttteS tOo muCh anD toO f-f-fAsT sO i NeeD to DesTRoy sOme Or tHem oR tHey WiLL CrAsH inTo eACh otHeR aNd ThE ChaIN ReACtion WouLD CauSE thEM to FalllL Intto the VOID."** _

_ **"I alSo soMeTImes neEd to PaTCh somE uP becAUse ViruSeS TrY To GeT InTO AAAU's aND thAT MeSSeS TheM up. SomETimEs irreParebLY, sO I NeEd to DestRoY tHoSe ToO." ** _

Ink stares at the grass beneath his sneakers, and slowly his hand goes to his vials, but Dream slaps his hand away from them. "No, Ink. You need to let the knowledge sit for a little, else if you go immediately for them you won't remember anything that happened the past hour."

He looks at Dream, and promptly his paints start to swirl and roll within his magic and he throws the colours up. Dream keeps holding onto his hands, not letting them go.

"Dream, I need to! W-what a-am I supposed to f-feel right now?" Panic seeped into Ink's voice for a brief second before the paint slowly washes again, his eyelight no longer changing shape and starting to go pale.

"Hold on for half an hour, Ink. Then you won't forget for sure. Now, I am going to let go of your hands, and I want you to write down on your scarf everything you just learned through the method Sci taught you." Dream told him, slowly relaxing his grip on Ink's hands.

Sci had taught Ink a way to have even more notes on his scarf, by having him write a tiny bit of code (that was fully written down for if he forgot) which let him write down a word and then attach something to that word. An image, a memory, a bunch of text.

Ink nodded, his eyelight fully white by now. In his blank state Ink was very agreeable, dangerously so, though slowly Dream was trying to have him be able to do things even when blank. It... was a work in progress, though at least he was able to follow orders.

He started to write on his scarf, right by his ear and attaching the memory and the transcript of it to the word ** !IMPORTANT ERROR! **that way he would look at it the moment he forgot.

Ink look up at Dream for approval, and Dream nodded, letting him drink his paints. He promptly burst into tears the moment he drank them, guilt slamming into him at his actions. Dream sighed and hugged him.

Ink turned to the skeletons defending the ERROR and swallowed at the number of cracks and injuries he could see on Error from so far. "If... if you want, I could heal him?"

Ink remembered that before all the fighting, he had tried to talk to the ERROR. The memories of those conversations were always filled with holes, and the only thing he really remembered was constantly healing him without knowing where the injuries came from, and the feeling of defeat and resignation, which caused him to think it was because Error had refused to stop.

Geno narrowed his sockets at him before looking back at Error, wanting his opinion.

Error frowned but decided to give Ink a chance, but warned him beforehand _ **"HeALinG maGic MakES Me ThrOW uP."** _

"I don't use healing magic to heal." Ink told him, walking slowly to them and taking out a tiny paint brush from his inventory, "I 're-create' the missing parts, and I think that Dream told me it feels weird and kinda stiff for a few minutes."

Ink cautiously started to paint in a few of the more obvious and more painful cracks.

"_We're still taking him to Dust." _ Geno decided, " _Heal whatever you can reach, for now everything else will be done by Dust."_

Reaper raised an eyebrow at that, staring pointedly at Geno.

_"Yeah, whatever."_ Geno rolled his eyelights at his husband and turned back to Ink, _"Anything Dust is unable to heal because of Error's inability to handle healing magic will be healed by you. We will contact you if it is needed."_

**"See it as making up for the pain you caused him with your ignorance. Or, a start at least."** Reaper told him, hugging Geno around the waist and nodding at Fresh.

Fresh, who unnervingly still hadn't said anything, stepped forward and lifted the ERROR up in a princess carry and went to Reaper to portal to Nightmare's Castle.

As they all walked to the portal Reaper summoned, Fresh turned around.

"If ya evar cause my bro pain again, I will make ya feel more pain than ya have eva imagined existed." Fresh warned them, a purple tentacle moving his glasses down a bit, showing the true body of the parasite, purple magic smoke coming from the SOUL in his socket.

And with that, the four dissappeared into the portal.

Ink let himself fall down to the ground below him, covering his face with his hands. Dream frowned and sat down next to him.

The skeletons that had fought with them had been sent back to the AU the Council operated in, the moment Geno had managed to faze through Sci's barrier. So the two were alone.

"We will have to announce this information to the Council." Dream told Ink after a few moments had passed.

Ink nodded and paused.

"How did they even know to come here?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was Blue. Blue told them after overhearing his brother talk about the plan.
> 
> Also, I know that I said that the wounds were glitching back to health, but that's slow and undependable seeing as they could just as easily glitch apart again. If they're healed, then they can't.


	9. Vials

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drink~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [WARNING: drug addiction, self destructive actions, and.... angst~]

Ducking inside a closet, Ink quickly grabbed a yellow and green vial, which with shaking hands, he pulled the cork of off and downed. Letting out a sigh of relief afterwards, Ink went to put the vials back in their place on his bandolier, when he heard a throat being cleared in front of him.

Looking up, yellow filled his vision as Dream stared down at him from the doorway. Sockets narrowed and mouth pursed, he strode forward and roughly pulled him up. Ink hadn’t noticed that in his rush to drink his vials, he had let himself fall to the floor.

“Oh. Heya, Dreamboat.” Ink nervously said, his eyelights darting around to find an escape from his friend. Nothing would be able to safe him from Dream’s anger though and his hands itched to grab his purple vial. He refrained from doing so however, knowing that Dream wouldn’t take well to that.

“Don’t ‘heya’ me, Ink.” Dream glared at him. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Nothing…?” Ink tried, however he knew that his friend had seen everything and wouldn’t be able to be fooled, especially since Ink could hear his voice tremble a little as he spoke.

Dream sighed and let him go, causing Ink to crumble to the floor. Quickly standing up, Ink looked as Dream pinched the space between his sockets. He looked so… disappointed.

“Ink… You know you don’t have to take these anymore… right? You have a SOUL now.”

“Err...”

“Of course you know,” Dream sounded defeated.

“C’mon, Dreamboat, I’m fine! See!” Ink protested, swirling in a circle.

“YOU ARE NOT FINE!” Dream yelled, tears starting to appear in his sockets. “THOSE _THINGS_ ARE ERODING YOUR SOUL!”

Ink winced, taking a step back and bumping against a shelf, causing some buckets and cleaning supplies to tumble to the ground.

“Dream…”

“Why are you doing this to yourself! All that trouble to get you a SOUL, ALL THAT JUST SO I CAN WATCH YOU SLOWLY KILL YOURSELF!?”

“Hey, no, I don’t want to-“ Ink protested, but was promptly interrupted.

“THEN WHY?!”

Ink looked away from Dream and hugged himself, hiding his trembling hands from view. It wasn’t as simple as Dream had been making it out to be, just… stopping something he had taken for _eons_. The vials had been what let him feel… but also what kept his SOUL from re-growing. The only reason he had been able to grow his SOUL back, was because for a period of time the paints had stop falling and he had to settle with what he had left at the time. Those ran out fast, causing him to remain in a blank state for a month while Dream and Blue had been running around trying to find a way to get him some paints.

The colors soon fell once more in the Doodlesphere, it seems like the Creators had just coincidentally had taken a break all at once. Returning with the paints, Dream and Blue had been met with an impossible sight. Ink, walking around and _doing_ things. Feeling things.

“Why…” the tears finally fell down from Dream’s sockets, but he tried to keep his expression even. It…wasn’t working. “Please don’t…”

Ink stepped forwards and hugged Dream as he cried, which led to Dream being able to feel as Ink’s body shivered and shook. With a frown, Dream pulled away and grabbed Ink’s hands, seeing them trembling.

“We _need_ to find a way to get you off of them entirely, Ink. We NEED to.” Dream said, trying to get Ink to engrave it in his mind. Seeing that Ink was still resistant, for whatever reason he had, Dream’s sockets narrowed and he pulled away entirely from Ink.

Walking away and out the door, he stopped for a moment and looked back at Ink.

“When you had just gotten a SOUL and Blue and I returned with your paints, you told me you loved me. That you were now even more sure than before, since you now knew that these feelings were real.”

Ink gulped. He _had_ said that and he still meant it. He loved Dream. However, Dream had gently rejected him back then, saying that he wanted Ink to first get used to having a SOUL and that maybe they could be together after some time had passed and the SOUL had settled entirely.

“If you were honest back then… Then you will stop. Because I refuse to be together with… with a drug addict, that doesn’t even _want_ to change. You are slowly destroying yourself and it is already painful seeing it as your friend. I wouldn’t be able to see it happen as your lover.” With that said, Dream left his view, leaving Ink alone in the closet.

Ink wasn’t able to hold himself up anymore, his emotions running wild inside of him with no way out, so he let himself fall down to the floor, hugging his legs to his chest and burying his face in his knees. Some ink started to drip from his mouth and he lunged towards a bucket next to him, but he wasn’t fast enough and he threw up on the floor and himself.

Hands starting to tremble again, Ink slowly lowered them towards his vials. He hesitated, remembering Dream’s words, but…

Grabbing some dark blue, he tipped it into his mouth.

_He was alone anyway._


	10. In Dreamswap with Ink

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Decided while editing this, to split it into a SFW version, to be posted in my Living Stories one-shot book, aka here. While the NSFW part will be in the Kinktober book on AO3 when it starts!

There were many words that could describe Ink.

So many in fact, that we will just focus on one. Lost. Capital letter L.

Ink sighed as he stared at the ceiling of the room he was stuck in. A version of himself was in the room with him, staring at him, guarding him. He didn’t know why his alternate self was staring at him this hard, like he was trying to figure him out.

Turning around, Ink hid his face in the pillow he had taken from the bed. He, of course, was not on the bed, but on the floor directly beside it, not feeling like being on something soft and preferring the hard floor.

Dream had told him numerous of times to not touch weird things and Ink knew that that included random portals appearing in the Doodlesphere and- Actually, now that Ink thought about it, Error had said the same thing. And Blue. And Core. And- okay, so a lot of people had told him that. He hadn’t listened to them, because if he had, he wouldn’t be in this situation.

His situation, being him stuck in an alternate Multiverse. Where the one corrupted by the apples was not Nightmare, but Dream. what Ink could feel, this change caused many AU’s surrounding Dreamtale to be affected, therefor changing so many things. Apparently, that’s because of a… ‘butterfly’ effect? Not knowing if that’s the correct term for Sci had once used to describe somethings in their own Multiverse, Ink just used the term he was hearing the Creators excitedly talk to each other about.

That was something that was different in this place too.

Ink was able to perfectly hear the Creators, but it seemed that his alternate couldn’t. Or at least no longer followed what they said.

It was something that Ink could barely comprehend at first. Not listening to the Creators? Knowing their wants, their orders, hearing them loose motivation and _leave_ and then… not help them? Not do as they said?

That was a utter foreign concept to Ink. Even Error followed the commands of the Anon’s, the cast out Creators deemed too destructive and toxic.

But Ink was seeing it happen right in front of him.

It had happened while he was talking to the Dream of this place, a Creator suddenly called out for help. Call him weak-willed or whatever, but the moment he heard them call out, his brush appeared in his hand and he was ready to run off to help them. However, his alternate stopped him before he could leave.

He had been very confused, this Creator had called for help, they should go and help them! Did his alternate want to do it on his own?

Then he had been informed that they didn’t respond to all Creators. That this Creator wanted them to make an AU that had negativity and that that was not allowed.

‘Only the positive ones,’ the Dream alternate had said with a smile.

It… it disgusted Ink.

Ever since he had learned of the Balance both he and Error were unknowingly upholding, Ink had thrown himself into learning more about it. _It was something that made sure that he wouldn’t be forgotten._

Error had been upset at first, but after a long screaming session between them, he had begrudgingly accepted it. It had been a very long time since then and Ink knew that Error was so much happier now, having gotten together with their Dream and no longer getting attacked when doing his job.

Back to the Multiverse he was in, Ink could _feel_ the Balance of it barely holding on.

For Ink and Error, it had been the Balance of Creation and Destruction that had been the problem. For this Multiverse, Ink could see that it was the Balance of Positivity and Negativity that was very far on the edge, much more that his and Error’s had _ever_ been.

It was like the Nightmare of this place didn’t even _try_ to do something about it. Ink knew that the Dream alternate wouldn’t do anything to improve it, seeing as he seemed pretty off the rails to Ink. He probably didn’t even have the word ‘balance’ in his stupidly large dictionary.

The Dream alternate had wings, something that Ink could admit was pretty cool. The Blue, he had noticed had a glitch in his left socket, while his own alternate behaved like someone had pissed in his paints.

Speaking of his paints, Ink could feel his starting to wear off, his eyelights already becoming paler. Sitting up, Ink took off his sash and placed it in front of him, pulling a large glass from his INV.

“What are you doing?” his alternate asked him abruptly.

“Putting my paints in a glass to drink my dose all at once, of course!” Ink grinned at him, his voice having the ‘duh’ tone.

Putting two drops of his paints into the mixture, he forwent adding the black, white and pink paints. He added a few more drops of yellow and green, Joy and Excitement, and skillfully mixed them. However, his alternate stopped him right went he was about to drink them.

“Why?” he frowned, “Dream is in the castle.”

“What?” Ink blinked, his paints wearing off quickly and leaving his reaction somewhat bland.

Leaning away from his alternates hand, Ink quickly downed his vials, sighing in relief once he felt them start to work inside of him.

He didn’t know the Monsters here, _he even had seen the occasional human walking around_, and despite them being versions of himself and his friends, he wouldn’t want to be in his blank state around them. Ink trusted few people to be like that around and not a single one was in this Multiverse.

Narrowing his sockets at his alternate, Ink asked, “Why would it matter whether Dream is or isn’t in the castle?”

“Dream’s aura gives emotions, like the vials,” the Ink explained, “At the very least, you shouldn’t need to drink them as often. Unless it was a long time ago that you took them? A week?”

“Hah?” Ink bounced up from the floor and rocked on his feet, leaning forward exaggeratedly in an anime girl pose, as he said in a cutesy voice, “Nope! I took them when I woke up! Gotta take them… Twice a day!”

“Ooh! Maybe it’s because of a difference in our Multiverses!” Ink excitedly said, “I’m unaffected by my Multiverse’s Dream’s aura too! And Nightmare’s! Though I’m psure that my Nightmare can control his! Are you saying that you _are_ affected?”

“Err, yeah.” His alternate looked at him weird, maybe he had seen his pose before? Ooh! They could watch anime together!

Unconcerned about getting back to his own Multiverse, Ink spun in a circle. When the Creator that brought him to this place was satisfied, they would just kick him back! And if not, well, Error would surely come and drag him back for their Balance! He might as well have some fun while here!

“What’s those vials do?” his alternate questioned him, causing him to snap out of his thoughts and blink at him.

“Oh! You don’t have those?” Ink asked interested.

“No. What are they?” the Ink repeated.

“Black’s hate! I don’t use that one, but every time I don’t put it in my sash, it appears within a few moments. I don’t know why, but a Creator probably made it so!” Ink explained cheerfully.

“White stripes the effects of the other vials away, forcing me to my blank state. Sometimes, I use it to thin out the effects of a different vial.” He continued with a smile.

“Pink is-,” Ink faltered for a moment before pressing on, “Pink is lust, not love or fondness, like some in my Multiverse seem to think. I- I haven’t used it much. Dream told me that it was like I was forcing myself and that it could be somewhat compared to me being drugged. I used it a bit carelessly a long time ago and Dream sat me down, telling me that because of how I become under it, that I would need to _really_ trust someone before trying. I haven’t felt a need to use it since he got through to me with that.”

His alternate looked contemplatively at him before opening his mouth to ask more.

“Ah! You need a nick name!” Ink exclaimed, cutting off whatever the other had wanted to say, “It’s too confusing to think ‘my alternate’ constantly!”

“Well, it’s _my_ Multiverse you’re in, so _you_ should be the one with the nickname.” The other said.

“Yeah, but people think of me more when saying ‘Ink’. You’ve been referred to as ‘alternate’ so much, that if _I_ were to get the nickname, it would be far more confusing!”

** <strike>Damn it, Ink! No breaking the fourth wall!</strike> **

Shrugging, Ink looked expectantly at his alternate, who sighed and conceded. He had heard the Creator as well and knew it would be easier to just go with it, despite still disliking having to give up _his_ name.

“It’s not like it’s for long, silly! Just this one One-shot!” Ink rolled his eyelights before frowning contemplatively. “And maybe one more? Not in this book though…”

** <strike>Ink, I swear</strike> ** **-**

“Yeah, yeah!” Ink smiled before turning back to his alternate, “Pick a nickname! Ooh, maybe Brush? Or, or… err… Vial! Pale? No, wait, that one is already taken, hmm-“

“Paint,” the newly dubbed Paint cut him off exasperated. “I’ll just use Paint until your annoying ass is gone from here.”

“Alright! Simple, but it’s your choice!” Ink shrugged.

“My choice, huh?”


End file.
